How was the 230 trillion mobilized to fight the Covid-19 pandemic spent?

230 trillion mobilized

According to the Government's report, the total direct resources for Covid-19 prevention and control and social security policy implementation mobilized by state agencies at all levels in the 2020-2022 period are about VND230 trillion.

Resources are mainly mobilized from the state budget. In 3 years, 186.4 trillion VND has been mobilized from the state budget for epidemic prevention and control. In addition, more than 43.6 trillion VND has been mobilized from other sources such as foreign aid, the Covid-19 Vaccine Fund, contributions from local budgets, the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee and member organizations at all levels...

In a report sent to the National Assembly, the Supervisory Delegation of the 15th National Assembly assessed: At the time of the outbreak, balancing and mobilizing resources from the state budget still faced many difficulties due to the huge demand for resources to serve the work of preventing and fighting the Covid-19 epidemic.

Many localities have not been proactive in ensuring funding sources, especially in provinces and cities that have not balanced their budgets, have low revenue, and mainly depend on the central budget. Some localities that have balanced their budgets such as Ho Chi Minh City, Dong Nai, etc. also faced difficulties and lacked funding sources during the outbreak.

The monitoring team also listed expenditure of mobilized funds.

First of all, the budget to support people, workers, employers, and business households affected by the Covid-19 pandemic is over VND87,000 billion, of which expenditure from the Social Insurance Fund and Unemployment Insurance Fund is over VND47.2 trillion, accounting for 54.3% of the total support budget.

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused severe damage.

As of December 31, 2022, the budget used to purchase Covid-19 vaccines was VND 15,134.76 billion with 102,383,206 doses, of which: the state budget was VND 7,467.18 billion; the Vaccine Fund was VND 7,667.58 billion. The remaining unused budget was VND 262.5 billion, of which the state budget was VND 137.3 billion, the Covid-19 Vaccine Fund was VND 125.2 billion. The Ministry of Health has paid back the state budget and returned the fund according to regulations.

The cost of purchasing test kits is 2,593 billion VND, and the cost of collecting testing service fees is 534.7 billion VND. The cost of purchasing medical equipment, supplies , drugs, and biological products (excluding test kits) is 5,291 billion VND...

In addition, there are many other expenses in the process of preventing the Covid-19 epidemic.

Many violations

In some units and localities, borrowing and purchasing of materials, test kits, and test reagents from suppliers were recorded in various forms, such as with or without written agreements, with or without contracts, unit prices, and payment methods.

return judgment,... or lack of detailed information, mainly only handover minutes, with the total value of goods borrowed according to the contract and agreement being 1,061 billion VND and borrowed in kind with no value.

The State Audit has transferred the list of units and localities that borrowed or purchased test kits with signs of irregularities to the Government Inspectorate.

The monitoring team also noted many violations in bidding, purchasing, borrowing and lending of test kits.

According to the State Audit report, in 2020 and 2021, units purchased biological products, chemicals, and test kits at different prices, depending on the type, origin, and manufacturer. Some units purchased test kits from Viet A Technology Joint Stock Company worth up to VND 2,161.6 billion (directly or through an intermediary distribution unit).

Many violations related to the purchase of test kits were discovered by the police.

The monitoring team pointed out many violations in procurement. The proposed procurement list provided quantities but did not explain the calculation method; the procurement documents did not show requirements on technology, technical characteristics of the product, manufacturer, year of manufacture, and expiry date. Some procurement packages did not have decisions approving the budget; the contractor selection plan was not assessed.

Some contracts were signed without contract performance guarantees, posing risks during the procurement process. Many cases involved advance payments or loans for goods (test kits, instruments, chemicals, biological products) from suppliers, then bidding to return the goods or complete documents for payment, which did not comply with the provisions of the law on bidding.

Post-pandemic settlement chaos

The monitoring delegation pointed out difficulties in settling the costs of building new, repairing, and upgrading Covid-19 treatment facilities, quarantine facilities, and field hospitals.

Specifically, in the prevention and control of the epidemic, some tasks must be urgently implemented such as building new, renovating, and upgrading facilities serving the isolation and treatment of patients with an investment nature but are used from regular expenditure sources or budget reserves, which do not ensure payment and settlement. At the time of monitoring, there were still no guiding documents from ministries and branches to remove and resolve difficulties and problems.

The Ministry of Health has issued a document guiding the establishment of mobile medical stations and field hospitals to prevent and control the Covid-19 epidemic, but there is no guidance on dissolution and handling of assets upon dissolution, causing difficulties for localities.

In the payment of epidemic prevention and control regimes for subjects participating in epidemic prevention and control, the monitoring team also pointed out that there were still errors, such as duplicate subjects, incorrect subjects, incorrect norms, incorrect regulations; incomplete payment documents according to regulations; failure to promptly pay funds to frontline forces against the epidemic, funds for local support working groups.

Some expenditure tasks for epidemic prevention and control have actually arisen and have been proposed by units to be spent from the state budget, but up to now, central ministries and branches have not yet provided instructions, so there is no specific solution.

Some units receiving sponsorship from organizations and individuals in kind only receive quantity without unit price, cannot determine value, in many cases the sponsor does not provide the value of the sponsored goods or the sponsorship value in the sponsorship minutes has a very large difference compared to the price of the equivalent item.

This leads to difficulties in determining the value of assets to establish public ownership because there are no specific instructions in determining the value of sponsored goods, and in managing sponsored, donated, and given assets according to the provisions of the Law on Accounting.

'The death rate from Covid-19 is still higher than other infectious diseases' According to Mr. Nguyen Trong Khoa, Deputy Director of the Department of Medical Examination and Treatment Management, Ministry of Health, the death rate of dengue fever in our country is 0.09%, while this figure for the Covid-19 epidemic is 0.37%.

Source